Imagine owning a Stanley Cup ring from the Edmonton Oiler’s dynasty. Well not only can you make such a purchase, but you can own then-team owner’s Peter Pocklington’s Stanley Cup ring! Or rings. All 5 of Peter Pocklington’s championship rings are available in Classic Auction’s latest sale.

Pocklington, the much maligned former owner of the Oilers who continues to find himself in fresh financial peril, spared no dime to have these championship rings made back in the day.

Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz put up Peter Pocklington’s $1-million bail at the request of former Oilers President Glen Sather, according to the authors of an authorized biography of Pocklington.

Katz, who purchased the Oilers in 2008, put up the bail out of his friendship for Sather, the current president of the New York Rangers, according to Terry McConnell, one of the authors of I’d Trade Him Again.

Court documents had initially listed Sather as the person responsible for putting down the deposit, but he subsequently requested assistance from Katz, who could provide the security more quickly, said McConnell.

“He did it as a favour to Glen Sather,” said McConnell. “Sather called him saying ‘I need some help with this.’ Katz got it done in a day.”

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. say former Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington has agreed to plead guilty to perjury in a bid to avoid jail time.

According to the plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Riverside, Calif., Pocklington acknowledged that he concealed two bank accounts from a bankruptcy trustee and failed to disclose two storage units in Southern California.

The plea bargain calls for probation, including six months of home detention that could force him to wear an electronic monitor. The criminal conviction also means he could be deported back to Canada.

As I’ve suggested, the news of Pocklington’s arrest will come as no surprise to people in Edmonton, as Pocklington’s reputation was, shall we say, not the best in these parts. He was known to be a hard man to get to pay his bills, and that’s putting it kindly.

If I’m being a bit careful here in my description of Pockington, well, Canada has strict libel laws and, to be fair, in regards to these new U.S. charges, he’s innocent until proven guilty.

But in regards to Pocklington’s destruction of the Edmonton Oilers, there’s no doubt in my mind, the man is guilty. He ruined the best hockey team in the world. He traded Wayne Gretzky away like a piece of meat, as Paul Coffey so aptly put it back then. Then he “traded” away Mark Messier (I’ve always wondered if Pocklington got money in that Messier deal, too. I wonder if we’ll ever find out. I don’t know).

The NHL was allegedly interested in moving one of its financially failing teams there in the mid 1970s, and Edmonton was very receptive to either getting a failed team or being part of an NHL-WHA merger.

Skalbania gave Oilers owner Peter Pocklington a chance to add a Canadian icon, Gretzky, which figured to bolster the Oilers’ chances of getting into the NHL. There were two catches. Skalbania offered Gretzky’s services to both Pocklington’s Oilers and to the Winnipeg ownership group and “the Gretzky sweepstakes” would involve a game of backgammon. [...]

Over the years, some people have said that Skalbania really did set down those parameters and others have said the “bet” was just a fable. But there is one man who said the trade really happened over a backgammon board.

From Terry Jones of Sun Media, some words from the anonymous fan that bought Peter Pocklington’s hockey memoribilia earlier this week:

“I’m somebody from Oiler Country who bought them because I think they belong in this area and because it takes me back to my childhood watching the Oilers have all that success in the 1980s.

“I think there are only six people who had all five rings, Pocklington, Glen Sather, Mark Messier, Kevin Lowe, Jari Kurri and Randy Gregg. I might be wrong about that. I was just trying to figure that out myself. I’m sure there are others in the organization.

“But Pocklington brought Wayne Gretzky to Edmonton. He also sold him but he brought Gretzky here for the best years in his career and I was able to watch him those years as a kid when my dad took me into Edmonton for the games.

Looking back, I consider Gretzky to have been very instrumental in my life.”

Peter Pocklington, who once sold Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings, held an online garage sale this week that netted the former Edmonton Oilers owner a cool $294,269 US.

The items included five Stanley Cup championship rings from the Oilers’ amazing run in the 1980s, plus three Edmonton Trappers title rings dating from when Pocklington owned the Pacific Coast League baseball team.

In addition, there were miniature replicas of the Stanley Cup and Clarence Campbell Bowl (Western Conference championship) trophies. A number of smaller items such as photographs were also up for bid.